Stable extendibility of vector bundles over Lens spaces mod 3 and the stable splitting problem (Q842975)

From the introduction: ``Let \(X\) be a space and \(A\) its subspace. A \(t\)-dimensional real vector bundle \(E\) over \(A\) is said to be stably extendible to \(X\) if and only if there is a \(t\)-dimensional vector bundle over \(X\) whose restriction to \(A\) is stably equivalent to \(E\). For a positive integer \(n\), let \(L^n(3)\) denote the standard Lens space \(\text{mod\,}3\) of dimension \(2n+1\). Let \(\pi: L^n(3)\to \mathbb{C} P^n\) be the natural projection and let \(\mu_n\) stand for the canonical complex line bundle over \(\mathbb{C} P^n\); we define \(\eta_n= \pi^*\mu_n\). For any vector bundle \(E\) over \(L^n(3)\) which is in the image of the real restriction \(r: K(L^n(3))\to KO(L^n(3))\), there is an integer \(s\) such that \(E\) is stably equivalent to \({_s\eta_n}\).'' In this paper, the authors study the conditions for a given real vector bundle over \(L^n(3)\), which is stably equivalent to \({_s\eta_n}\), to be stably extendible to \(L^m(3)\) for every \(m\geq n\) and they obtain arithmetic relations between the integers \(s\), \(t\) and \(n\). The second main result of the paper is the formula on the \(k\)-fold power \(E^k= E\otimes\cdots\otimes E\) of a real vector bundle \(E\) over \(L^n(3)\) -- see Theorem 5. Moreover, the authors study the following stable splitting problem: to determine the conditions for a \(t\)-dimensional vector bundle over a space \(X\) to be stably equivalent to a sum of \([t/2]\) two-dimensional vector bundles over \(X\). They answer this problem for real vector bundles over \(L^n(3)\) by means of arithmetic conditions (see Theorems 5.1, 5.2 and 7).